08-28-2022, 02:10 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-28-2022, 04:18 PM by Eric the Green.)
(08-27-2022, 07:21 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:To use a common phrase, China is "too big to fail." It won't fall so soon after its modern peak just a few years ago. But it may undergo revolution in the mid-2030s. We'll see just how far it goes.(08-27-2022, 04:19 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Well, China has been an autocratic empire for about 3000 years or more.China has been autocratic for 3000 years, but that doesn't mean this was a single continuous autocracy. They have collapsed multiple times throughout their history. For example, part of the reason why Asian moms and grannies fall into the tiger mom archetype is that there are still people with living memory of their own family having to cannibalize each other to survive under the famines induced by Mao.
Quote:So I don't think they are going to fall apart on that account.Neither do I. They're going to fall apart on account of crumbling demographics, food shortages, resource dependencies and other issues
Quote:Quote:But they are and always have been vulnerable to periodic civil war, and more-recently revolution-civil war.Agreed.
Quote:Being a libertarian, I doubt Zeihan is right about very much here. Sounds like exaggeration to me.He gets almost all his data from readily available government databases. "He's probably not right because he's libertarian" is a character assassination.
The idea that they import 85% of their energy, mostly from the Persian Gulf, seems absurd given all their coal plants and their huge solar energy farms. The assertions of poor agricultural output seems strange considering most of their population still pursues agriculture. The assertions of such a drastic population decrease and related assertions are ridiculous.
But a true one; but it's not as much about character, as it is about held belief. Libertarianism is even more-corrupting than social conservatism. Reagan was wrong. Government is part of the solution, not the problem. The points I made about China are obviously correct.
Quote:Quote:But, if even a bit of his claims are true, it would seem unlikely that they will be the overwhelmingly greatest superpower in the world. But we in the USA sure have been making their prospects for becoming #1 easier over the last 40 years with the policies that your author believes in!actually, the policies that he wants are...probably more in line with what you want. I would rather let most of Eurasia burn and focus on America. He wants something akin to a Breton Woods 2.0
We can't let the world burn. The world is burning from this "let things happen" ideology. We are all interdependent, and we are one world community, like it or not. The climate crisis is just one proof of that. It requires global cooperation to solve. Covid is another proof of that. Technology is yet another. The rise and fall of imperialism is another. Western colonialism made the world one, but now after the world wars The West is not ruling the world anymore. All regions and all races and nations are rising up and have their place, and borders cannot be walled off. The nationalists, trumpists and social conservative/America Firsters don't like it. It is a matter of them learning to adjust.